Monday, July 14, 2014

A Paddle Out

The magnitude of this story is a little hard to understand if you're not a waterman or someone familiar with the surf beaches in California or of the particular history of the Newport Beach lifeguards, so permit me a little background.

The first use of the surfboard in a rescue was performed by Duke Kahanamoku, the father of surfing, in Newport Beach, California back in 1925. Consider this snippet:

I have been menaced by well-armed teenage border guards, had a gun pointed at my head by a deranged vagrant in NYC, jumped from an airplane, swum to wrecks below 100 feet, yet have never been so dry-throat scared as I was the first time I saw the surf into which Ben Carlson dove to rescue a drowning swimmer.

So, it is fitting that he was remembered in a manner that is, for watermen, their version of a high requiem Mass with incense and sanctus bells.